Why are many major cities at or near an extreme location in each state?
New York City is at the southernmost point of New York State. Chicago is in Northern Illinois. Detroit is in Southern Michigan. Boston is located in Eastern Massachusetts. LA and Miami are at the southernmost parts of their states as well and etc.
I know geographical features had something to do with many of these, but I’m curious to hear if there are other reasons for this being so. |
Older states in the east often had state boundaries determined by rivers and other bodies of water, and cities really liked being near navigable water in the olden days, so the big cities were often found at the edges of the states. Out west, these issue weren't at play as much, so you ended up with cities like Denver and Phoenix smack dab in the middle of a relatively arbitrary rectangle.
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But why do we have/need a Rhode Island/Delaware today when we have a California/Texas? |
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Name the biggest city you can that is not its size because of water. Now that's a tough question. |
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It's common for cities to be on large bodies of water (lakes, oceans, big rivers). It is also common to use those natural boundaries as political boundaries.
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Also political boundaries may reflect expansion over time. One side of a state may have been walled in by a more established neighbor, and the frontier border was more aspirational with less people living out that way.
The 13 colonies seem like a good example of this. |
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For example, NYC would have easily been in a more central location within NYS had it combined with NJ with the Hudson not being a state boundary. Same could be said for Chicago if Illinois was able to gain more land from Wisconsin and Indiana. San Francisco seems to be the odd one out since it’s pretty centrally located in California. And I’m curious about other countries that also have this characteristic. Many European major cities are far enough from the border between countries I assume (London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Moscow, Berlin, etc). |
In Chicago's case it is in Illinois because Illinois was concerned that the original proposal for the state boundaries would deprive it of a port on the great lakes. So the boundary was drawn to include just a sliver of the Lake Michigan shoreline including what would eventually become Chicago. At one point Wisconsin territory would have encompassed Chicago as well which would have transformed Wisconsin into something of a "big 5" state with 17+ million residents. Talk about alternate history.
That that same time Wisconsin territory was to include Upper Michigan as well, but that was broken off and added to Michigan because they were concerned about a lack of mineral resources. If things had remained the way they were proposed Wisconsin would be THE Midwestern juggernaut. Chicago, Wisconsin: https://www-dnainfo-com.cdn.ampproje...order-illinois Bow to your overlord, Mega Wisconsin: https://wpr-public.s3.amazonaws.com/...amp=1448913960 In all seriousness, this is illustrative of how these cities end up situated where they do in states. |
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https://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/19..._1_ksmap-1.jpg kshs.org here’s how kansas territory was when denver was founded (overlain state boundaries). if they had left kansas boundaries as such, denver would have been on the edge. the front range was a sort of “coast” in a way. |
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New Mexico Territory [Arizona, Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Colorado]:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ry%2C_1852.png Like I said, political boundaries exist because of politics and at times physical geographical features, like rivers. |
Are there any examples of cities being founded specifically based on their centrality within a state that have since become major cities because of it? In and of itself it's not really a compelling reason for a city to succeed. Most cities also pre-date the modern iteration of their state anyway.
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illinois attempted the same thing with springfield, but the chicago juggernaut eventually proved to be far too powerful to overcome. |
the northwest is based off the columbia river. also the oregon trail, people saw paintings of the river and oregon and out east things werent going well so people headed west. or something like that. now its been almost 200 years and oregon the nw is still pretty, theres a bunch of problems but the whole world is kinda having trouble. anyways heres a pic.
https://i.imgur.com/J5Q7sQf.jpg |
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The simple answer to why Detroit is directly on the U.S./Canadian border is because the Americans won the battles against the British that decided control of Fort Detroit, and Fort Detroit was located on the western side of the river. |
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